He was Britain’s best-loved radio presenter – and for many years its highest paid.

At one stage Sir Terry Wogan was said to be worth almost £20 million.

But the Irish-born broadcaster left only £1million to his family in an apparent move to spare them a hefty inheritance tax bill, it emerged yesterday.

Sir Terry, who died from cancer in January 2016 at the age of 77, left a net estate worth £1,047,576 to his wife Helen and his three children Alan, Mark and Katherine. The bulk of this will go to Lady Wogan, to whom he was married for 51 years.

Well advised: Sir Terry Wogan and his wife Lady Helen. His fortune does not include money and assets he transferred to family members before his death

Details of his will were made public after probate was granted on Wednesday at the district registry in Winchester, Hampshire.

A fortune of £1million may appear relatively modest for someone of his fame. But this figure does not include any assets he transferred to another family member or to a trust before his death.

Also excluded is the value of property Sir Terry owned jointly with his wife. The couple lived on a 12-acre country estate in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, and had a holiday home in Gascony, in the south-west of France, worth an estimated £1million.

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Last night solicitor Elizabeth Young, partner at law firm Roythornes, said the Radio 2 presenter – who kept his cancer battle secret from all but closest friends and family – appeared to have been advised well before his death.

It looks as though Wogan was able to leave a small estate to spare his family a large inheritance tax bill

‘If Sir Terry had amassed significant wealth over many years’ service, you might expect him to have a significant estate,’ she said.

‘But he may well have taken advice early on in his career when it first because clear that his estate would face an inheritance tax liability, and embarked on a range of tax planning steps to ensure his estate fell below the taxable limits.

‘This might have included placing assets in Helen’s name, or transferring assets to his children or grandchildren, or placing assets for their benefit in to a range of possible trusts. Knowing what we do of the man you would expect that he took good advice and followed clear legal routes to secure the estate with as little liability to tax to benefit those he loved the most in the world.

‘Inheritance tax is, after all, considered to be a voluntary tax and with the right timely advice any estate can be protected in this way. The end result is a very neat non-taxable estate.’

In the 1980s Sir Terry was one of several celebrities to put substantial funds into forestry in the Scottish Highlands. He took advantage of a government scheme that allowed people to write off investments in woodlands against income tax. The controversial policy helped fuel a forestry boom but was criticised by conservationists for destroying wildlife habitats.

Sir Terry sold the investments in 1995. In 2006, leaked figures showed he was the BBC’s highest paid radio presenter, earning £800,000 a year. Sir Terry, who always waived his £9,000 fee for hosting Children In Need, was also paid for presenting the Eurovision Song Contest and other TV shows, and for writing books, including two autobiographies.